Last Thursday, November 16th 2006, the 'CSAAB' technical group held a new meeting. During this meeting, the technician for the AVV Gavà Mar and the City Council of Gavà (Víctor Barriales) presented the following proposals in order to improve the implementation of the global proposition which came into effect on October 26th, 2006.

WEST configuration (preferential):

The current draft (in the ‘AIP’) of the planes’ turn from the third runway allows the pilots to start it once they have reached an altitude higher than 500 feet. Despite that there exists a NOTAM (Notice to airmen) which aims to start the turn sooner, it has been proven that a very high percentage of planes (more than half) start to turn between 800 and 1,000 feet.
For that reason two new drafts for this turn have been drawn up so that it can be modified in the AIP:

a) Turn BEFORE arriving at an altitude of 500 feet (like what is done in Madrid-Barajas)
b) Turn at 420 feet (like what is done on some runways in Montpelier, Nice, Paris Le Bouget, Paris Orly, Oulu, Prague, Malmoe...)

Furthermore, it is requested that a notice is sent out to all the airlines that operate in the El Prat airport to remind them that this NOTAM exists in order to improve its fulfillment in the short term.
AENA acknowledges all of these requests.

EAST configuration (non preferential):

During the first 20 days of implementing the new configuration in the El Prat airport, the EAST configuration was used 32% of the available daytime hours. This is an ascending figure.
In order for the global proposition to be effective, the use of the EAST configuration must be minimized as much as possible. The more its percentage of use nears 15%, the more beneficial the runways role change becomes in terms of the environment.
In order to determine the configuration based on the current wind conditions and the forecast, it was proposed to improve the wind margin tool up to 10 kts; however, without questioning the authority of the Control Tower’s Chief in charge.
AENA does NOT recognize this request at all.

NIGHT configuration :

AENA upholds February 15th, 2007 as the date to start using the new night preferential configurations which will require landings to be executed on the transverse runway coming from the sea without flying over any central inhabited areas

Other requests :

The repositioning of the sound meters was requested again so that they coincide with the new routes. AENA designed the current network to control fixed routes that are no longer in use.
AENA acknowledges this request.

November 15th, 2006 - The names of those accused in OUR criminal complaint were made public

Today the names of the three people imputed in our criminal complaint –filed in the Number 3 court of El Prat where it was accepted– were made public. The charges were filed against those responsible for putting the third runway of the El Prat airport into operation –AVV Platja de Gavà and, much later, some residents of Castelldefels added to this complaint–. We would like to point out that the report completed by the ‘Mossos d’Esquadra’ at the request of the District Attorney for Environmental Affairs forms a part of the criminal complaint. The accused are:

Jaime Alejandre: General Director of Environmental Quality-Ministry of the Environment

Manuel Bautista: General Director of Civil Aviation of the ‘Ministerio de Fomento’

Manuel Azuaga: President of AENA

We want to make it clear that we do NOT support the accusation of the President of AENA (Manuel Azuaga). We believe that Manuel Azuaga was confronted with an existing problem (a located and constructed third runway) and in turn he became involved to find a solution to the problem by organizing all the necessary meetings and technical research projects, creating technical research groups and approving and financing the construction of the BY-PASS.

October 27th, 2006 - Joint statement from the Mayors of Castelldefels, Gavà and Viladecans

These three mayors –who represent 170,000 inhabitants- have signed a joint statement in which they request that the new flight configuration of El Prat airport continue to be used once the new terminal of the airport starts operating; that is, they ask for the airport to operate with SEGREGATED RUNWAYS.

We hope that in the near future at least the City Councils of Sant Boi and El Prat (members of the CSSAB), as well as Sitges and Begues, join this statement, as they were also affected by the old configuration.